More than 120 Syracuse University students took part in the largest day of student-organized community service event of the year on Saturday.

The day, called “The Big Event,” is organized by OrangeSeeds, a first-year empowerment organization that coordinated the event with the support of the Student Association and its Impact Week.

Participants were divided among 11 different locations across the greater Syracuse community, spanning from the Samaritan Center and Salvation Army to local schools and parks, said Julia Eklund, an OrangeSeed and freshman political science and policy studies major.

Eklund said a majority of the service centered on beautification and upkeep of the various locations. Some of the volunteer work included painting, raking leaves and whatever each individual location required.

Doing community service is sometimes tough because volunteers do not often get to see the results of their work, Eklund said.

Tori Cedar, who went to Porter Elementary School in Syracuse, was able to work alongside those who will reap the benefits of her and others’ efforts. Cedar, also an OrangeSeed and a freshman psychology and communication sciences and disorders major, said volunteers cleaned up alongside students and teachers of the school, which also held its day of service on Saturday.

Community service should not be about making the volunteer happy, but rather a natural habit, Cedar said.

“I think that’s a really important thing that we did,” she said of interacting with the community.

Volunteers were required to be at Schine Student Center at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday in order to disperse to the various locations, Cedar said. Despite the early start, “Everyone was just so happy to be there. There was not one frown in the entire place,” she said.

In the fall semester, Seeds participated in weekly service that prepared them for organizing their own campus-wide day of community service, said Ben Bacolores, a member of the OrangeSeeds executive board.

OrangeSeeds formed three committees, one each for logistics, community relations and marketing, said Bacolores. Each committee organized a different aspect of the day, he explained. The community relations committee reached out to organizations in the community to coordinate locations, the logistics committee organized transportation and meals and the marketing committee put together campaigns to get students involved.

Even as a freshman, Bacolores said, “you have the power to make an impact, you have the power to help people.”

Eklund added that OrangeSeeds is very happy with the turnout and even more so with the work volunteers performed on Saturday.

“The fact that every year we get a consistent turnout of over 100 students, I think it speaks to how great the program is and how much Syracuse students love going out and doing community service,” Eklund said.

Published on April 19, 2015 at 7:33 pm

Contact Danny: dmantoot@syr.edu